


Loneliness

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:19:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11094855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: It's so damn lonely on the third tier.





	Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> tysm fafa for the prompt! (ishihai + loneliness)
> 
> happy 6/4~

Ishida’s always recognized the loneliness in Haizaki, since the day he’d walked into the basketball club room. He wears it like a chain around his neck with no clasp, too tight to slip over his head, something he can’t rid himself of and something he learns to live with. It’s been with him so long that it penetrates every bit of him, the way he’d sat alone at lunch and balled his sandwich wrapper up before throwing it at the trash can like a basketball (sometimes he had missed; he’d left the wrapper there at the bottom of the bin, not so much trusting on the public’s desire for order and cleanliness, leeching off of it the way people said he had—he just hadn’t cared whether it went in or not, where it had landed).

It was in his basketball, too, then; he’d stolen because no one was going to give or teach and he hadn’t known how to reach out properly so he’d just internalized everything, taken with abandon, not particularly to punish others but to get himself to the top, no matter how many hands he’d had to step on to get there. And it had reminded Ishida more than a little of himself, fighting to the top like a crab in a bucket of his middle school, until finally he’d gotten there, looked around, and been kicked off by kids a year or two younger than him.

Ishida doesn’t remember what the view’s like, now. He wonders if Haizaki does, or if they’re both still chasing the same idea, the same peak, the same thing that had come so close they could taste the cloying sweetness on their tongues. Sometimes, when they go out and play streetball all night, he thinks Haizaki is. But sometimes he thinks Haizaki’s given up, found something else, enough to be satisfied right here, with what little he has. Those are the nights Haizaki reminds him he isn’t, stuffing his tongue down Ishida’s throat, kissing him desperately, pushing him back until the links on the fence are digging into his head and his hair is snagging on them, until Haizaki is all messy force and side effects, until his focus on the goal is undone but not his want. Ishida can feel it, plain as the cracks in the asphalt beneath their feet.

They say it’s lonely at the top, and maybe it is. But it’s fucking lonely on the side of the mountain, too, going your own way when all the others racing up block your path, tumbling down to a gulf and pulling yourself back up, thinking how differently things might have gone if you’d played your cards differently. It’s useless, but both of them do it anyway, and neither of them talks about it.

It’s like they don’t talk about Haizaki’s middle school teammates and their multimillion-dollar shoe contracts in the US, to say nothing of the sums they’re paid for their day jobs as NBA stars. They don’t talk about how much Ishida had wanted, how much he’d thought it could be him, how he’d honed his ambitions like a blade sharpening a pencil until the tip had snapped off. They don’t talk about how nobody talks about them, except as perhaps a footnote, a case of whatever-happened-to-him.

Instead, they play basketball, dominate their amateur opponents and take their money, piranhas in a koi pond painting the clear water with blood. They relish the victory; they pretend there is nothing more than this, the two of them, outclassing the neighborhood. They pretend it’s not so damn lonely on the third tier. Ishida smashes his lips against Haizaki’s until he can’t breathe, pulls at the front of his hoodie until Haizaki yells at him for stretching it, digs his fingers into the sides of Haizaki’s hips until they bruise purple and green the next day.

People call them despicable, but it doesn’t matter. Despicable, lovely, perfect, abhorrent, interesting—whichever words they choose, it means they’re getting noticed and it means the light’s shining brighter around them, just a little bit, another extra-small LED to add to the array in the dark pit. And, darkness and disgust and all, they still have each other. And maybe Ishida wouldn’t have chosen some knockoff miracle as his partner if he’d had a say in it, but he hadn’t. And he’ll never be satisfied with this, but he’s glad he’s got Haizaki in his corner.

It’s not something he can say to Haizaki; it’s bordering too much on the mushy side of things, probably the kind of thing Haizaki’s too unused to hearing to be comfortable with—that he’s wanted, needed, necessary. The thing about loneliness is that at least you stand out, and it’s hard to let go of that and leap into the unknown, the togetherness. Ishida’s not sure he’d be ready to make it himself, and maybe the thing that lets him think those thoughts in the first place is the knowledge that Haizaki’s far enough that it’s safe to have them and do nothing with them. Or maybe that’s just psychoanalytical bullshit, and Ishida’s been watching far too much late-night TV on his graveyard shift at the gas station.

Some nights, though, they walk back from the street court and Haizaki reaches for Ishida’s hand. He turns his face away; the other hand’s trying to ruffle his own hair (difficult with cornrows) and Ishida smiles at him. He shifts his hand to a more comfortable position and says nothing. They wait for the light, and Haizaki looks at him, grey eyes wider than their normal sneer. He doesn’t say anything, either, but he doesn’t need to. Ishida tugs on his hand when the light changes; Haizaki mutters something about him always being in such a fucking hurry, but his tone is almost tender, almost warm, a little spark underneath him. Ishida savors it, takes the long way home. But Haizaki doesn’t stop him, and, well, that speaks enough for itself, doesn’t it?


End file.
